


Dance Within The Fairy Ring

by HB Kit (Hawaiianbabidoll)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Bittersweet, Fairy AU, Fairy Ring, Fairy Yuri, Fairy Yuri Plisetsky, Fantasy AU, Ficlet, Gen, Short Story, Yurio, friendship fic, rated T for safety but is actually probably suitable for general audiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-26
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-24 04:49:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10734450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawaiianbabidoll/pseuds/HB%20Kit
Summary: A lonely fairy lives his life trapped in an empty world until a single human boy finds him. Enter Otabek, who never expected to encounter anything within this old dead forest. Memories of rhymes he was taught as a child flicker through his mind. Maybe it would have been better if the fae Yuri had remained unfound.Fairy fantasy AU starring Yuri Plitsetsky. Non-romance.





	1. Prologue

"Come dance within the fairy ring,"  
Beckon children of the light.  
With wings a glow, they'll call to you,  
Resist with all your might.  
  
The children, beauty, porcelain skinned,  
With movements made of grace,  
They'll smile as they tempt you,  
With wishes from their race.  
  
"If you dance within the fairy ring,"  
They'll say with reached out hands,  
"A gift we'll give to only you,"  
They leave out their demands.  
  
'Dance until your feet begin  
To crack and sorely bleed,  
'Til muscles ache, 'til vision fails,  
Then dance with all more speed.'  
  
Go dance within the fairy ring,  
For miseries and woes,  
No gift will fairies give to you,  
A corpse beneath their toes.  
  
Remember all who hear the fae, they'll plead for you to stay,  
But the only thing within the ring is pain and end of day.


	2. Child of Light

The first thing he could remember was light. Muted and gray, filtering through equally gray trees. Sometimes the light swayed when the branches of the trees shifted, and Yuri always wondered what caused it. He had no sense of the wind, as the wind never touched him. He had no sense of the warmth that came from the sun, as the heat could not reach him. All he knew was the monochrome, soundless world he saw from his perfectly circular patch of green, outlined in mushrooms. Mushrooms far too white and clean to be normal.

What did a tree feel like? Was it soft like the grass beneath his feet? Rough like the dirt around the grass? Squishy like the mushrooms that kept Yuri safe inside? He wanted to know...he wanted to see. Why was everything so gray? Why did the green of the grass not pass the mushrooms? Why couldn't he pass the mushrooms? He wanted to go. He wanted to play. He had wings that shimmered, but he knew not if he could fly. He didn't know how. He was never told. What did the world sound like? Did it have a sound? He didn't know. The only time there was ever anything besides silence was when he made sound. When he spoke. When he moved. When he cried. He was the only one able to make sound. He knew, because once he'd seen things besides the trees. Once he'd seen the wingless. It was early in his memories, and they never noticed him. But they also never made noise. Why didn't their footsteps make noise when they stomped on the ground? When he stomped, he could hear a little thud. What were they wearing on their feet? Why were they wearing things on their feet? Did your wings fall off once you were older, or if you left the circle? Why were they so dark and their hair as black as night? Did they rub the dirt on themselves to do that? Yuri tried that once...to darken his milky skin and flaxen hair, but it didn't change his colors. It just made him dirty.

Why was he here? He wondered that often. He had nothing to do. Nobody to talk to. How long was he here for? His body had changed since he could first remember. His fingers were once stubby, but now they were longer. His hair was once short and close to his head, but now it stretched towards his chin. His legs once wobbled beneath him, but now he could jump from one end of the ring of fungi to the other. He wondered if that brief moment in the air was what it felt like to fly. Yuri started to jump through the air often. To twirl. To dance. Dancing was all he had. There was nothing but silence, gray, and dancing. When he finished dancing, he would cry. Yuri didn't know why. He didn't like crying. It made him angry at himself...and that just made him cry more.

What was the point? He couldn't end this. He didn't know how. He wanted something different to happen. He hadn't seen the wingless since he was still stubby. Did the wingless really exist, or did he make them up? He couldn't remember. When he was little, he had loved that his patch of life was so colorful. The monochrome world around him had scared him. But now he was so desperate to stand in the gray scale. He wouldn't care if he lost his colors or his wings...please, if he could only step outside the circle. He'd give anything. Even if it would end his existence, he would do it. Just for a taste of it. The other side.

How does one attract another? The world was so still. The only thing to ever draw attention was the shifting branches. Could Yuri draw attention in the same way? The longer his hair grew, the more it would move and shimmer with his movements, just like the branches of the trees. Would someone see him if he swayed and shifted too? Just one other would be fine. Anyone. Someone to come over and see him. Just for a bit.

Yuri danced from dawn til dusk within the fairy ring. Sometimes he'd even dance through the night. Every day, he danced and pleaded for someone to notice. To see. To come. Please. Just for a little while. He silently begged as his legs flew through the air. His hair reached past his shoulders now and started down his back, getting so long that he learned to tie it up in twists so it would stop tangling and falling in his face. His tears dried up. His limbs grew longer. His movements were more fluid and graceful. His dancing was more beautiful. Still nobody came. Still Yuri danced. It was all he had. All he could do. He would not give up. No matter how much he ached inside his chest as each day passed, unchanging; each day without anyone but himself. No matter how much this patch of green that was his started to blend with the grayness that was the empty world. Yuri danced.


	3. Child of Earth

The first time he had seen him, he had told his mother and father. They had dismissed him, believing it to be a figment of child whimsy. He had only been around 8 years old at the time, after all, and his nana had been reading him far too many stories. But Otabek could have sworn that he saw a child in the forest with sparkling, transparent wings, watching him and his family’s party trek through the trees. The forest had been so thick…so quiet and eerie. The grass had crunched brittle beneath their feet and the branches of the trees had clawed through the air, forming a leafless net to hide the sun above. It had scared him and he had clung to his father’s chest for most of the journey. That was probably why he had been so surprised when the shimmer of light caught his attention. He hadn’t expected to see anything as beautiful as that child had been - an unmoving statue, hidden in the failing light. He didn’t know people could have hair that captured the sunlight and turned it yellow. He didn’t know people could have eyes the color of gemstone. He thought that color was reserved solely for his mother’s jewelry. But he had stared at those eyes for the brief second he saw them, shocked silent by the fire within. He felt drawn to the child.

But then a tree broke his line of sight and he blinked, the spell broken and the child gone.

When he was a little older, he had wanted to go play in the forest. Maybe find the child he had seen that one time, but his parents forbid it. The forest was dangerous, they told him. Animals lived there that would want to hurt him, or he’d get lost and never find his way home. But he hadn’t seen any animals in the forest ever. Not even birds. The dead forest they called it, because no life remained within. His nana told him the reason was because the forest was cursed. The land they lived on was once a home of the fae folk – a magical race that lived with nature. She told him that fairies are mischievous spirits that like to play tricks on humans. She told him to stay away from the fae, because they would try to ensnare him with their treachery and spells. She would tell him fairy tales about rings in the ground that would whisk him off to fairy land if he wasn’t careful and sing him old folk tales and songs warning of the dangers of the magical.

The older Otabek grew, the less he believed in the fairy folk his nana had once filled his head with. He saw no evidence that little magical sprites existed, purposely going about and scaring the animals, killing the crops, poisoning the water. That was nonsense. He learned of course that the reason the forest had no animals was because the animals were afraid of the people and probably hid away in the deepest of the woods, that’s all. The soil was ill suited in the forest for growing anything but the poison mushrooms that seemed to pop up in the shadows of the old withered oaks and elms. The forest was pretty much a wasteland. Even rain didn’t seem to want to touch it. There was nothing for the animals to eat and forage from near town, that was all. That was why birdsong only existed away from the forest and not within. There was no curse. The only reason the trees weren’t harvested for their wood was because of the wood rot that ate through to the core. Otherwise, more people would have reasons to go to the forest. It was not a curse, Otabek repeated to himself, which was keeping them away.

Otabek grew out of fairy tales. He had to become a man and take on his role in the town. He had to help his father and mother with their merchant’s stall and to be a good example to his baby brother. But sometimes when he closed his eyes, he could picture the child in the forest. He couldn’t remember the details of anything else but the eyes. Had his young mind once pictured the child with wings? Likely, with his nana filling his head with fairy lore. He wondered if the child had been entirely made up in his mind, or if he really had seen a lost kid in the trees. He wondered, if the child WAS real, what had happened to him.

Nearly a decade after traveling through the forest as a child, Otabek would finally enter it again. A man near grown, he had taken it upon himself to take care of his parents and his little brother, and in these winter months, food was scarcer than normal. Nobody bothered hunting in the dead forest. There was no point, they had said, because there was nothing to hunt. But Otabek was sure if he went deep enough, surely he’d find something. His parents urged him to reconsider, to join the regular hunting parties, but those parties took weeks and were coming back with empty traps. Not even a rabbit to split between them. They were desperate. Desperation meant trying things they knew probably had nothing to offer…but even a slim chance was still a chance.

 The hunt was days in, and still there wasn’t a single track to be found, nor even a dropping. The grass was still as brittle as he remembered, maybe even worse. It crumbled at his touch, dry and browning. The tree bark peeled, the inside ash, with just a light tug. The only thing that moved at all were the branches, and that was only when the wind thought it would try to liven things up here…but the dead forest was aptly named. This had been a fool’s errand. Otabek had just been about to head back when movement caught his eye, just there, between the trees. For a breath he thought it just the wind again, but he felt no kiss of cold on his skin from a gust. Heard no shifting of branches above. His attention turned in the direction of the movement, and there again he saw it. A brief shimmer, the sun reflecting off of something bright where it could snake through the snares of the old branches overhead. Otabek carefully made his way through, trying to be quiet, but the world was so dry and broken that there was no hiding the snaps and crunch of his footsteps. At least that was what he thought, but when he got a better view, he saw his noise hadn’t caught the attention of what he saw at all. But his attention went undivided. His eyes widened and his jaw briefly fell slack. Sunkissed hair as bright as daylight sat atop skin as pale as the moon on a figure so slender and breath taking, for a moment, Otabek had forgotten to breath. He exhaled slowly, stepping carefully closer so as not to spook the figure, but they seemed too caught up in their dance to see him. The young hunter could only stare as the dance continued, edging closer all the while until at last the figure, dancing so silently and without hesitation, spun and stopped. Green eyes like jewels locked with his own. At first Otabek swore he saw desperate longing, but perhaps that was just his own eyes reflected back at him, for now he saw only surprise.

With the dance ended and the two staring at each other, Otabek could take in what he saw. A boy, young and with braided hair fairer than anything he’d known possible on a human being, and skin the shade of a noble who never once worked the field. His simple backless shirt seemed far too small for him, tight around his chest and cutting off high, revealing a skinny waist and flat stomach. It was something better suited for a child of three years than what he assumed was a boy in his barely-teens. His feet were dainty and bare, his legs long and exposed beneath skin tight black shorts and a white silken half skirt that could have once been a child’s blanket. Strangely, the ground where the youth danced was rich in color; a vibrant green that screamed of life and healthy growth over rich brown soil, quite the contrast to the brittle grass and ashen earth everywhere else. A flicker of movement made Otabek’s eyes jerk back up, and only when the sun shimmered on the translucent appendages did Otabek’s mind finally register the other worldly wings. But that couldn’t be right. Magic wasn’t real, and humans did not have wings. Just like that boy he saw all those years ago hadn’t had wings. He had made that up. Surely. And this surely wasn’t the same boy, despite having the same hair, the same eyes, the same everything, aged the same as him. This wasn’t a fairy.

The longer he stared at the boy, the more he realized he had just been fooling himself.


	4. Child of Dance

Yuri was in shock. He didn’t know how long he stood there, looking a fool and just staring uselessly at the figure before him. Wingless, but a figure. Another living, breathing, soul. For how long had he danced, praying that someone would find him? How long ago did he give up hope, but continued going through the motions anyway, just to pass the time? Yet here stood what he dreamed of seeing for so long. Someone else in his world. The figure was gray, his hair cut short, his clothing gray, his eyes gray, his skin gray. He was clearly a being of the monochrome world, but at least he was a being. Yuri tried hard not to scare him off, tilting his head and smiling carefully. Could this being speak? Please, he prayed. Could this being pass into the ring? Oh how he hoped so. Could they touch? Yuri reached out his hand.

The boy stepped back.

“No, wait,” he tried, his voice loud in his ears. When was the last time he had used his voice? It didn’t sound as he remembered. It was deeper. Much deeper than he recalled. The person must have understood, because the boy stopped his retreat. Yuri didn’t realize it was his eyes that caused the pause, not his words. His eyes had been the siren call to stay. He had been afraid he’d lose this chance to interact, and it showed through his eyes. Had he known, he would have been angry at himself for showing such fear, but in the moment, he could only thank god that the boy wasn’t leaving so soon. His eyes watched the other’s lips as they moved. Was the boy trying to speak? He heard nothing. Perhaps his confusion showed too, because soon the boy was stepping closer and repeated himself, but still Yuri heard only silence. “I can’t…hear you,” Yuri explained, furrowing his brow. The boy came closer again, careful, inching just enough to the mushroom ring to barely touch the edge.

“Are you a fairy?”

Yuri stared. A voice. A voice that wasn’t his own. Something fell onto his hand and he blinked down at it. Water? He was…his fingers reached up to his face. He hadn’t cried in so long. He thought he had forgotten how.

☼

Otabek wasn’t normally one to show his expressions so easily, but shock after shock was appearing on his face today. First the sight of the fairy. Now the sight of the tears. Had he done something wrong? Said something wrong? He nearly wanted to reach out to the boy to comfort him, but a rhyme from his childhood rang out in his head. His eyes briefly glanced at the grassy circle again, ringed by healthy white mushrooms. ‘The only thing within the ring is pain and end of day….’ Surely it was nonsense, but then again, he had thought fairies were nonsense just an hour ago too. Otabek’s eyes returned to the boy’s, finding himself suddenly locked with emerald again. Like gems, he had thought as a child, and gems still rang true now. Gems with a fire in them. The boy’s voice, deeper than he expected and with a pleading tone, did not match his eyes. The voice sounded fragile, but his eyes looked utterly unbreakable.

“I can hear you. I can actually….wait…what did you call me?”

Otabek was roused from his musings by the fae’s voice. Why was the boy so surprised to be able to hear him? Wasn’t that why he called him over, to hear him more easily? Or was this just to get him to enter the ring? Otabek was wary, yet he felt his instincts say that wasn’t true.

“A fairy. That is what you are, aren’t you? You have wings…” he nodded to the glittering things coming from the boy’s back, looking as delicate as sheer curtains, yet sturdy enough to maintain their shape behind him. The fae’s gaze flickered briefly to his wings before staying locked on Otabek as if afraid he’d disappear if he looked away for too long.

“I am me. I’ve always just been me, wingless. Yuri. I am Yuri,” spoke the fae. Yuri, Otabek said to himself.

“Why are you here, Yuri?” Otabek dropped trying to get the confirmation of race that he didn’t really need from the fairy. What else could he possibly be? Yuri was the textbook description from his old nana’s tales, with the exception that he was bigger than what ‘sprite’ would make you envision.

“I’ve always been here.”

That couldn’t be true. No. There’d be no way he could survive in this forest. There was no food, no water, no life. Otabek’s eyes dropped back to the rich and healthy grass beneath Yuri’s feet and the equally healthy and thriving mushrooms around him. Maybe there was some life…but no. Always? All this time, there was a fairy in his backyard and he never knew? Except deep down he did know, didn’t he?

“Nine years ago…Were you here nine years ago?” he asked, but he knew without an answer that it was true. Yuri was the boy he saw. The fairy he had told his parents about.

“Always,” Yuri repeated, eyes setting on Otabek with a fierceness that rivaled a tiger’s roar. It spoke more than his words did. That one look reprimanded Otabek for making him have to repeat himself. Otabek couldn’t help it. He gave half a smile.

“Are there any more fairies?” Otabek asked, to which Yuri only cocked his head in confusion. Otabek gestured to his wings again. “Other winged ones?” he clarified, but the fae shook his head.

“You are the first anything I’ve seen since the wingless that walked by many dances ago,” he explained. His expression grew a bit distant, a certain level of excitement Otabek only just realized had been there dying out. “I have been….alone. Always.”

“Why didn’t you just leave?” It made no sense. He had wings. He could go anywhere, right? Apparently not, because when Yuri lifted his hand towards Otabek, something strange happened. Otabek had tensed, unsure of what to expect, even leaning away some, but Yuri’s fingers stopped right at the edge of the grass ring, the skin spreading smooth over some invisible barrier.

“I cannot.”

☼

Otabek sat with Yuri for hours, just…talking. He was amazed at how little the fairy boy knew about the world and even more amazed how little the boy knew about fairies. All that he knew was what he could see from his prison. A prison which Otabek still didn’t understand. He had tried to pull the fairy out of the ring, reaching in and grabbing the pale boy’s hand. Nothing stopped Otabek from passing through, but the second Yuri’s hand reached the edge again, it was like trying to move a mountain. Otabek was positive there was no way in hell that the fairy boy had strength enough to stop Otabek’s attempt. Such a slender frame was toned from dancing, yes, but not strong enough to resist being pulled by Otabek without even trying. So there was definitely something at work here keeping the fairy locked up. Something that had been keeping Yuri locked up for all his life, alone in a dead forest.

Otabek had almost been amused by the way Yuri stared at his hand once he had let go of it after their brief moment of contact, but any amusement was crushed when he heard him say he had no idea other people were so warm. There was something sad to Otabek that this teenage boy had never felt the comfort of contact in his entire life.  He felt bad for him. It was why he dared to stay, for just a little bit at least, to try to ease what must be a lonely existence, but it was Yuri’s personality that made him not want to leave. Yuri, for all that he had never gotten to experience, was full of fire. Opinionated and passionate, even about new concepts he was only just learning about. Otabek admired him. He realized when Yuri locked his eyes with Otabek’s once more during a promise that he’d walk out of this forest one day, that Otabek had always admired this fairy. Ever since he saw him that first time, a mirage in the woods. Yuri’s unyielding eyes had stayed with him, even when the rest of the details faded, and his eyes trapped him now.

The sun was going to be setting soon, and it would be too cold to linger any longer. Otabek knew he had to find shelter and build a fire. “It’s getting late,” he worried if he left, the fairy would disappear too, even if he knew Yuri was trapped here, “I need to leave.” Yuri went stone faced, frozen, his previous smile wiped clean from his face.

“But….the sky is only a little more gray….it will lighten again. If you stay,” he spoke as if he couldn’t see the pale blue of the sky fading to pink, purple, and soon navy.

“Yuri, it will be black out, and cold. Too cold to stay. How do you keep warm?” he hadn’t thought about it now, but Yuri’s too small clothes hardly looked suited for a night out exposed to the wind.

“Cold doesn’t happen here. Nothing happens here. The light changes shades of gray, but it’s not warm like you said it was. It’s just….light.”

“Yuri…you keep saying the world is gray. Can’t you see color?” Otabek asked, confused. Yuri looked indignantly at him, almost as if he were offended.

“Of course I can see color! But only here has color. Only gray extends past the mushrooms.”

That…couldn’t be right. Otabek reached into his pocket and pulled out a compass. It was brass bottomed with a bright red needle. “Yuri….what color is this?” he asked, holding it. Yuri scowled at him.

“Is gray. Like all of your things. The wingless are boring with design,” he huffed, causing Otabek to smirk just a bit. He reached past the mushrooms to quickly hand the compass to Yuri, placing it in the boy’s cupped palms. He watched as Yuri’s eyes widened.

Yuri stared at the little thing in his hands. It was smooth like a blade of grass, but hard like a stone. But more amazing was the color. Yuri had never seen this color, which Otabek soon told him was red. And the bottom was called brass. Curiously, when Yuri turned, the needle of this compass thing turned too. He wandered his circle with it and soon was delighted to see the needle dance as he moved.

“The world isn’t gray, Yuri. It just looks like it from where you are. But…I do need that back,” Otabek called to Yuri who had soon adopted a mischievous grin.

“If you want it, then come and get it,” he called, holding it out to his wingless companion…two feet away from the edge of the circle. Otabek didn’t seem too keen on taking the bait. Yuri’s smirk faltered, his arm relaxing to hold the compass at his side. He looked at the wingless evenly. “Otabek. I want to see what you look like outside of the gray.” They stared at each other for what felt like an age. Otabek sighed and Yuri started to deflate, his wings drooping at the refusal, but then the wingless stepped past the ring and into color. Otabek wasn’t in shades of grey. He was many colors.

Yuri hurried over to inspect these new colors up close. His skin was darker than Yuri’s own. It was still light, but not like Yuri’s unblemished almost luminous level of pale. His hair really was black like he originally thought. His eyes were brown though, but rich and so much warmer than the dirt between his toes. Then there were his clothes. Yuri wore plain white garments and though Otabek’s clothes did have a lot of black and grays, there were also small splashes of color like pale blue stitching on the inner jacket, gold buttons, and auburn gloves.

Yuri took no notice as the other had suddenly tensed again, but Otabek quickly relaxed once he realized the fae’s fascination and exploration. To think someone once told him fairies were evil creatures that only brought misery and pain. How could Yuri, this Yuri, possibly be evil? An easy smile fell into place on the boy’s face as he watched the fairy. Preparing for night was forgotten in the self-contained world of the fairy ring.

 


	5. Child of Death

Otabek soon lost track of time as he spoke with Yuri in the ring. He didn’t feel the cold in the protection of the fairy circle, though he did point out the darkening sky. Yuri insisted it was still all gray to him though. How disappointing, Otabek had thought, that Yuri couldn’t see. So he had tried to describe the colors to the boy.

Within the circle, the mushrooms that had once seemed like ordinary, plain white fungus, held a slight glow so they could continue to see each other even late into the night. The lights seemed to reflect off of Yuri’s wings and sparkle like a constellation. Otabek felt like he was under a spell every time Yuri stood up and stretched or shook out his wings.

“Hey, Otabek? What made you come over here in the first place?” Yuri asked after a small bout of silent pondering. He was standing at the edge of the circle, staring out at the monochrome world where the wingless had come from.

“Ah….I saw you dancing. I’ve never seen anyone move like that before,” he explained. Especially out here… “Do you practice often?”

Yuri gave a nod. “I dance every day. Sometimes all night. I always hoped someone would see. So maybe they’d come and find me. But nobody ever came…until you. Are there a lot of wingless where you come from? Like….6? 7 even?” Yuri thought that a rather large number of creatures. He couldn’t imagine it, having so many other souls around. Otabek laughed, which made the fae scowl.

“Yuri, my village has at least 30 people inside.”

30?! Yuri didn’t even know that many people existed in the world. Then Otabek went and dropped another mind blowing revelation.

“There are much bigger cities that have hundreds of people in them.”

Hundreds. Hundreds of souls…and multiple cities had them. That meant hundreds of hundreds? How come if there were so many people in the world….did nobody find him until today then? Otabek said everyone had a family…why didn’t he? Why did he have to grow up alone? Otabek was watching Yuri carefully and nearly reached out to lay a comforting hand on him, but thought better of it.

“….Keep dancing, Yuri. When you get out of here, your dancing alone will attract droves of people. Then you’ll see for yourself.”

“You mean if I get out of here. Otabek, you have no intention of staying here with me, do you?” it was a fact, not really a question. Why would anyone who was able to see hundreds of people leave that world just to trap themselves in one place with one soul with nothing to do but dance? Yuri only dreaded when the other was planning to leave, because the second he did was the second his world went back to unchanging isolation.

“I…have a family I need to care for, Yuri. I can’t stay…but I can visit. Often,” Otabek was making this a promise. Yuri just folded his arms and stared out at the dead trees around them.

“You said you saw me as a child. You lost sight of me then. You will lose sight of me again. You will not be able to find me again, and then you will forget,” he was sure. Yuri wasn’t one to embrace hope so easily anymore.

“I won’t. I could never forget you, Yuri, and I’ll have a map. Look, I’ll mark where we are. I’ll always be able to come back here,” he ensured, holding out a piece of paper and circling a spot, but Yuri wasn’t swayed. “….and if I can’t find you again…you’ll dance, right? And your dancing will bring me back to you.”

His dancing, huh? Yuri watched Otabek quietly for a few moments, frowning when the other stood up.

“It’s morning, Yuri. I need to get home. But once I stock up on supplies, I’ll be back…ok? It’s a promise. To a friend.” Otabek held out his hand for Yuri to shake. The fae hesitated. But finally he took it. Maybe it wasn’t so wrong to hope after all. Just this once. He offered Otabek a smile, small, as the other backed off, and Yuri watched the wingless…his…friend. The word brought a bigger smile to the fairy’s lips. Before Otabek was even out of the ring, Yuri was raising his arms and starting a new dance. He hadn’t felt so light in ages, and his footwork was like he was prancing on air. Otabek would be able to find him if he danced, he said. So he’d dance.

Otabek made the mistake of turning around for just a second to catch one last peek at the fairy, and became entranced by the sight of the other’s dance once more.

☼

Yuri’s heart hadn’t felt so light in his whole life. He made a friend. He got to speak to someone. To interact. God, he got to touch someone real and alive and not made up. Not that he made up imaginary friends. He was too mature for that.

Dancing was Yuri’s favorite form of expression. It felt good to move. To throw everything into his dances. Especially now. He noticed Otabek watching him too instead of leaving, which made him dance even more fervently. He didn’t think it was possible to get any lighter, but that was before he found himself dancing with a partner. Otabek had joined him rather than just watch from the sidelines. This was something he had never done before, but he fell into with ease, as if he danced with others all the time. He moved in time with Otabek as the wingless followed his twists and twirls. He smiled and moved faster. This was true joy.

Yuri danced for hours with Otabek, never tiring. He felt like he could dance forever, laughing with the other, lost in the dance. Had it been morning just a bit ago? It was night now he thought, but keeping track of time was hard in the gray. To think they had danced the entire day away, and still he didn’t want this to end. If it never ended, he’d be happy, even if it did sound a little selfish.

He had closed his eyes at one point, going through the motions of the dance, feeling the gust of movement on his skin. It was strangely colder, more refreshing, during his latest jump. He heard a thud from behind that made him pause. When his eyes flickered open again, he was surprised to see his vision washed with color. Gone was the bleak gray of the sky. Instead was a strange orange and yellow, swirling into pale blue. The yellow was fading, the light blue taking over. He gasped at the beauty of it, breath in just a bit of a pant from his dance as he looked around. Blue. Green. Brown. The monochrome was shattered. The world was color. It was… not as warm as his little circle of color in the mushroom ring, but far more inviting than the gray scale he had been used to. He smiled bright, spinning to turn to his wingless friend.

“Otabek! The color! I can see…” his voice cut off. His friend was on the ground, his breaths harsh and ragged. He was covered in sweat and shaking. And his feet…god, his feet were a mess of bruises and blood, the soles of his shoes eaten away and the boots tossed to the side. His toes looked purple and swollen, his heels cracked and oozing. Red was littered across the bright green of the grass in the circle, smeared like it was dragged multiple times. Some of it dried a grisly brown, but much of it glistening wetly in the sun. Yuri’s heart froze in dread as he rushed to the side of the wingless, crouching down. “…Otabek?” he asked, hesitantly, as his slender fingers gently rocked the other. No response. Why? Why was this happening now? What was wrong with him? What happened? His friend needed help, but he didn’t know how to get it.

Yuri looked around wildly before grabbing Otabek under the arms and dragging him across the circle to the edge. His wings flickered quickly, the wind, the precious wind tugging at them and briefly lifting him and helping him move for a brief moment. Otabek had mentioned wind moved the branches, but Yuri was in no mood to celebrate this latest experience. Instead he only knew that the wind would help him. He pulled Otabek closer against his chest and focused, spreading his wings wide before flapping them as hard and as fast as he could. The wind gave him a kiss and he took off, bee lining for the trees. The mushrooms pulsed when Yuri reached the edge of the ring. Their light faded. Suddenly they were a good 10 feet behind him, and Yuri was in the not-so-monochrome world.

“Otabek, please…hold on, I’ll find help. I promise,” he urged, willing himself to go faster. He was flying recklessly, branches whipping his face and slashing his skin. It hurt, but his brain only registered that in the back of his mind. Twice he collided with a tree and fell to the ground, but he was fast to grab the wingless and go back to his mad flight. But the third time he went down, he fell with a scream, a branch snaring his wing with a rip and sending him head over heel. He landed in the dirt, Otabek a few feet away. His body ached. His back felt like it was on fire…but what about his friend? Yuri looked up and forced himself to stand, making his way over. He rolled the wingless carefully onto his back, brushing lightly against Otabek’s skin. It was cold. Yuri leaned closer. He heard no breath. The fairy went absolutely rigid.

Otabek was dead.


	6. Child of Pain

His nana was old and rambled about weird things often, but a few years ago she told him when Otabek was little, he had seen a fairy. That had made him curious to ask his older brother, but Otabek had shrugged it off without much comment. Nana was happy to tell him the same stories she told his sibling though, and he drank them in. He had never seen magic or anything magical, but his brother was one of the most sensible people he knew, and if Otabek wasn’t outright denying their existence, then that was good enough for him. Otabek seemed less inclined to believe the older he got though. Still, he never told Rustahm he was stupid for believing in fairies even when it became obvious Otabek no longer did. He never dismissed Rustahm’s wild stories like his parents would. It was one of the reasons he loved his older brother. Otabek might have been eight years older than him, but he never treated him like a baby. He always treated him as an equal. 

He missed Otabek desperately when he left for his hunting trip, and watched the dead woods every night in hopes of spotting his brother’s return. His parents told him he wouldn’t be back for at least a week, but a week came and went, and still no Beka. He grew more and more nervous with each passing day. His parents started to join him on his nightly vigil and would carry him to bed when he inevitably passed out.

One evening, a glow in the forest caught his attention. Faint, and gone, just as quickly. He was tired. Too tired, he knew, from restless nights. He was seeing things. But then there it was again, a flash of the sun in the dead of the trees. But it wasn’t the sun. It was hair. A boy? A girl? With hair that long, it had to be a girl. She was beautiful, pale, shimmering in the low light. His eyes had widened at the sight of her, confused by her worried expression. But the beautiful figure was forgotten when what she was dragging came into view. Beka.

He ran towards the trees, tripping over his feet and hitting the ground with a yell. When he looked up again, the girl was leaning over Otabek, her wings glimmering behind her. Wings? Unimportant. His brother was there on the ground. He scrambled to his feet, spitting blood from his mouth from his bit tongue, and hurried to Otabek’s side. He shook him roughly and with too much force.

 “Beka!” he called, but no reply came. Otabek was paler than normal. Stiff. Cold. Tears ran hot down his face. “No. No no no no no!” He looked over the figure, covered in forest debris, blood, scrapes…and his feet. Good lord, his feet were an absolute horror. What had happened? A slender hand was reaching for his poor brother, causing him to lash out.

“Get away!” he yelled, slapping at the delicate hand, tears blurring his vision of the surprised look on the other’s face. The winged girl quickly back tracked and disappeared into the trees. Rustahm paid her no mind. His only focus was the lifeless body in his hands.

☼

His parents had heard his wailing and came out in a sprint, only to gasp at what they found. Their youngest, holding their firstborn and sobbing freely, was a sight no parent had ever wished to see.

It had been a fight to separate Rustahm from Otabek, the young boy having been so close to his brother. Denial had plagued him and he hadn’t wanted to let Otabek go, not physically nor mentally. He had screamed and howled for hours after the separation, curled in his bed. When silence finally surrounded him, he had felt empty. But then burning anger had filled his heart. Beka was stronger than this. How could he leave him? How dare he leave him? Fresh tears seared his skin but he made no sounds as they flowed down his cheeks. His mind flashed back to the image of the girl in the trees. It was her. It had to have been her. She did this to him. She took away his big brother. How dare she. Why would she?

Wings flashed in his mind.

Fairy.

Things clicked into place. Nana’s story flooded his brain. How long had the fairy made Otabek dance to make his feet such a mess? How many days did the fairy torment his brother, not letting him eat, drink, nor rest? Then she left them the corpse, a mockery to show what she could do, that they had let her do it.

Rustahm got out of bed, hands fisted. The fairy had taken advantage of Otabek not believing in evil fairy magic anymore, but he wouldn’t be so easily fooled. He wouldn’t dance in her stupid ring. He’d make her die in it. But first, he’d make her grant him a wish.

☼

This was stupid. He knew that when he left, but the need for closure drove him on. He had slipped past his grieving parents without them noticing. They had taken his older brother’s body out to the shed and rested it under a tarp while they prepared for….Rustahm didn’t want to think about it. He had to think only about the hunt. The fairy. The evil creature that was behind everything in this forest dying.

Rustahm was young and only had the map they had found on Otabek’s body as a lead, but he thought for sure that would be enough. He was wrong, his map reading skills not quite up to an adult’s level, but that was luckily ok. There was a path he could follow through the trees easily enough. First it was the very obvious drag path through the dirt. Nothing disturbed this forest ever….nothing except a stupid fairy dragging its victim of course. He followed the trail, hoping it led to the fae’s nest.

But the trail stopped abruptly.

At first he was alarmed, until he noticed broken branches. A lot of them. Fairies must be bad fliers. She had tried to throw him off her scent, it seemed, by switching from air to ground, or perhaps she had tired of carrying his brother and saw fit to just drag him. His eyes hardened into a glare and he followed the broken trees.

This path took hours upon hours to get through. He tired. He had eaten his rations of food he had packed ages ago, and he still didn’t know how close or far he was from the fairy’s nest. It had been a full day already….his parents were probably worried sick. What if he didn’t get home? His quest had started in anger, but fear was crippling him now.

Another hour of trepidation finally led him to something. Blood. On the trees. On the ground. On the rocks. An icy claw gripped his spine and made him tremble. He probably wouldn’t have moved from that spot if he hadn’t seen the shimmer of wings past the blood. There. Ringed by mushrooms. It was the fairy. Fire ignited his heart and he rushed forward with a cry, pulling a small iron knife from his belt. He didn’t stop as the fairy turned towards him. He prepared himself for a fight, for surely this was a trick to slow him down.

Rustahm’s knife slashed straight through the fairy’s shirt and spilled blood across his hands and arms. The force of his attack sent him careening forward and onto the ground. The fairy fell to the side away from him, a slender hand covering the wound he had inflicted. Rustahm scrambled to get back to his feet and not let the fairy have any room to get him unawares, holding his blade out and surveying the other warily. It was around then, as the shredded shirt fell loose that he noticed the fairy was male, not female, like he originally thought. But it wasn’t the gender epiphany that stilled him from launching a second attack. He was taking the time to actually see who he was fighting, and the state of the fae was surprising.

His wing was ripped, starting near the top of the large, insect like wing with a large shred hanging limp like spider silk blowing in the breeze. His body held cuts and scrapes just like Beka’s had, but his weren’t cleaned by loving parents. They were roughly scabbed and dirty. The fairy looked at him in surprise, looking every bit like he had been crying, minus any tears. Even then, with this creature looking utterly disheveled, Rustahm would be a liar if he said he didn’t think the fairy was still pretty.

“You look like Otabek.”

The voice that came from the fairy was deep and hoarse, but it was the name that made Rustahm lose his breath. No, he was done crying. He had cried every tear he had already.

“Shut up! Don’t you say his name!” he hissed even as he felt the wet well up at his eyes. For some reason, the sad smile that fell onto the fairy’s lips made him even angrier.

“You’re his little brother. He mentioned you….”

No, Beka wouldn’t have conversed with such an evil creature. It’s not true. This was all fairy lies to trick him into dancing in the fairy ring and dying.

“Sh…shut up I said!” he swung his knife, the blade making him feel just a bit braver, and stepped closer, “and use your stupid fairy magic to bring him back! You have to or… or I’ll kill you!” he yelled. The fairy only sighed though, frowning and trembling as he stared at the ground.

“I can’t…I don’t have magic. I’m sor-” he started but Rustahm wouldn’t hear it.

“You’re a liar! Fairy water can heal anything, even death. Nana said so! You know where it is. Only fairies know. Nana said it calls to fairies. So give it to me, now!” he ordered. The fairy’s attention had snapped up to him. When the fairy stood up, he was taller than Rustahm, and the younger boy was starting to lose his bravado. His hands trembled and when the fairy charged he found himself petrified to the spot.

But the fairy passed him, disappearing into the trees. Rustahm was left alone, and without anything to help his brother. He had failed.

Rustahm’s parents found him shaking like a leaf in a ring of mushrooms hours later, their search party having spent the majority of the day calling through the woods. Rustahm only cried into their arms. He couldn’t explain the blood on his knife either.


	7. Child of Life

His feet pounded against the dead floor of the forest, heart hammering in his chest. That boy…Otabek’s brother. If what he said was true, then somewhere was something that could fix this. Something that only Yuri could find. He had no reason to doubt the existence of fairy water. Otabek had known far more about fairies than he had, and apparently Yuri was a fairy himself. But if what that boy said was true, then he should have a natural pull to the water that he needed. If he just trusted his instincts….or did he have to will it? He had no idea, so he just chose a direction and ran. Ran and prayed. That was how he had found Otabek’s home the first time, after all, though at least then he had had a direction to go off of. The one the wingless had come from. Now though, he was running blind.

He didn’t know how long he ran. His feet were cut up from stray branches on the ground, and he now finally understood why he had seen the wingless wearing shoes. He had good stamina as all fairies do, but the injury to his side was leaking fresh blood and slowing him down considerably. It was funny how exciting red had been at first…now he despised the color. But he deserved this gash, he knew.

His foot snagged on a root and he fell, crashing through long dead bushes and hitting a decaying tree trunk so hard it actually exploded into rotting splinters. Down and down, he tumbled off a rocky outcropping and off a hill. When he finally stopped, he was sprawled across the ground in the bottom of a deep crevice. His body felt so bruised and broken…he had been far faster at flying and already missed the use of his wings, torn as they were, but he had no time to mope and nurse wounds. He had to find the water.

Forcing himself to open his eyes, he used the wall to get to his feet, and nearly fell straight back down when he did. His ankle wouldn’t support him properly. He had twisted it, he knew. It had happened once before when he was young and dancing, but the mushrooms had healed him after a few hours. There were no mushrooms here to fix his blunder though. Gritting his teeth, he braced himself and used the wall to limp down the crevice.

He didn’t know how long he walked. He felt so slow, edging along in the darkness. He didn’t know how he was going to get back up anyway with a bum foot and a torn wing, but he knew staying still wasn’t going to do anything, so on he moved. The ground was cold between his toes now. It must have been night then. Otabek had told him the world got cold and dark at night.

Just the thought of his only friend made him bite his lip and squeeze his eyes closed tight. Physical pain was better than dealing with his emotions. He should have been watching where he was going…his foot stepped into open air and he slid even further down into an empty basin. Here there was nowhere to go. He was in a pit and he was stuck.

It started to rain a few minutes later, the clouds crying the tears Yuri refused to shed. Yuri lay defeated in the mud and his own blood, hating his own uselessness with every passing minute until black covered his vision.

☼

When Yuri awoke some time later, the sky had stopped crying for him.  He didn’t notice right away though, because it had been a noise that roused him. A pretty sound, but loud. At first he thought a wingless had found him and was calling to him, but the source turned out to be winged indeed.

A bird was perched atop his knee. An animal, in the dead forest. Otabek had said it was unheard of. Yuri stared at the small thing, what he would later call a kestrel, and it stared back, tilting its head before taking wing and flying skyward. It was midday now, though who knew what day it was the middle of. Yuri sat up, the ground clinging to his skin in a way he’d never experienced before. Mud. When his hand went down to support himself though, he was surprised to hear a splash. Immediately his head jerked down.

He was sitting in an inch of water that only got deeper towards the center of the ditch he found himself in. His breath caught. Was this it? Had he done it? This surely must be magic water. It hadn’t been here when he closed his eyes, and now here it was. He jumped to his feet, immediately toppling back down and crashing face first into the water as his twisted ankle reminded him he was unfit to walk. His wings splashed as they beat against the not air and he gasped, pulling his face free.

Yuri’s second attempt to stand was easier going. The cool water was actually helping soothe his injuries, though he still limped horribly. Now the question was, how did he bring the fairy water to Otabek?

The realization that he had no way to carry liquid crashed heavily on him. He fell to his knees at the edge of the water, staring down at it, and curse him for finally crying again. He wished his wing was fixable at the very least, so he could cup his hands with water and fly to Otabek…but he didn’t know if his wing would ever heal.

Yuri slept until nightfall in the water. He stayed in the muck until his skin was pruned and squishy. Until his hair dripped no matter how much he shook it out. For a moment he wondered if he could ring his hair to pool enough water for Otabek, but he was sure he was far too late now. He’d never make the hike back before his friend was out of his reach and in the ground.

His ankle still ached some, but it was much better after being off of it for who knew how long. His wing though…he glanced up and blinked. Huh….the scrap that had torn before had torn free in the water, but the rest was mending. The hole was still obvious, but water glittered off of a barely there layer of skin that was so transparent you’d never know it was there if not for the droplets clinging to it.

The pool of water he had been sitting in was shallower now. Drying up without the rain to feed it, though that was something Yuri again wouldn’t know until much later. He barely even noticed the water level was lower, as he was too busy staring in surprise at his wing and testing it. It held, but it ached something awful and he had a feeling even the slightest touch would pop the fresh layer like a bubble. He doubted it could actually hold him.

Nature was on Yuri’s side though, trying so very hard to help him. Even as Yuri sighed, the winter wind was kissing his wings, freezing the water around the hole in the wing. Strengthening it with ice. Then the wind tried to pick him up. ‘Fly’ it seemed to whisper, magic in its unheard voice. This was a fae forest once. Fairy magic had been the life of the forest an age ago. With Yuri, it could be again. If only Yuri would see the signs.

Dripping wet and limping, Yuri’s wings flickered again, this time with less pain. He blinked at the appendage and fluttered again. His feet left the ground. For a moment he only hovered in disbelief, but only for a moment.

Yuri darted from the pit and straight above the trees. There, he spotted the clearing at the edge of the forest which the large not trees loomed. Water pulled from his hair as he flew with all his might.

☼

Yuri hadn’t had the chance to learn to land and was a little less than graceful when he collided with the ground near Otabek’s home. He was cold but that didn’t stop him. The lights were all on, but there was nobody around. All the nearby people were in the forest, still returning from their hunt for Rustahm. Yuri was lucky, otherwise the mess of a fae would have been hounded for seeking a corpse. But as it was, there was nobody to stop him from entering Otabek’s home and searching for him. Nobody to stop him when he leaped from the upper window of the main house to explore the smaller structure beside it, nor anyone to stop him when he broke open the shed door with a kick. No one to say a thing when he saw hair sticking out from under a tarp; not a soul to say ‘how dare he’ when he yanked that tarp away.

Yuri’s breaths squeezed from his lungs as he stared at the body. Immediately he tried to ring his hair…but the wind from the flight had dried it past the point of dripping. He cursed.

“No! Come on!” he climbed on top of Otabek’s ice cold chest and tried again. Nothing. “Please,” dammit, he had been so close. He found the water. He was here. He just…dammit. Dammit!

“I’m so so sorry…” he leaned closer, until their foreheads were touching. Yuri’s skin was still clammy. His hair still damp. Water did drip onto Otabek, but it was the fairy’s tears.

“Please….wake up….” He knew Otabek wouldn’t. The body was still icy beneath him. Otabek’s chest didn’t move an inch. Yuri hugged the wingless boy, holding him close for the first and last time. His only friend…his last friend too, he vowed as his head moved down to rest against Otabek’s unbeating heart. If this was what happened when a human befriended a fairy, then maybe he was alone for a reason. Maybe he was supposed to be alone. He wished Otabek had never found him and that he was still trapped in the fairy ring. At least then Otabek would still be alive.

Yuri sat up, staring at Otabek for a second longer before getting up with a flutter of wings. His final tears escaped, dripping down onto the prone form below. With a wordless goodbye, he flew out the doors and never looked back.

☼

His body remembered before his mind did. Pain. Agonizing pain. His lungs clenching frantically trying to get enough air but wheezing in failure. His feet crying in agony over broken toes and split heels that his body continued to put pressure on. Muscles that screamed from over exertion as he was forced to keep on moving. His brain pounding from desperate need of more oxygen that his lungs just couldn’t supply. He felt like he was choking. Like his legs were full of broken bones that kept breaking through his skin over and over again. He was dying. No, he was dead. He was lucky he was dead, or he would have screamed from the remnants of the pain, even as they faded.

His last memory was of falling, of seeing Yuri, so happy and carefree, unaffected by the toils of endless dancing, and then he saw only darkness. Had Yuri called for him? A voice had echoed in his dying brain. Perhaps the fairy had cast this curse on him by accident, if such a thing were possible. He had prayed it to be true, or Yuri was one damn good con artist. Like a gift, his mind replayed the call.

“please,” Yuri’s voice. Death was funny the way it gave you things you didn’t know you wanted. “I’m so so sorry,” yeah, it would be really nice if Yuri had actually said that and hadn’t meant to do this. At least his imagination could make him pretend. He wanted Yuri to stay an innocent and indomitable spirit until the end. He only wished he could have figured out a way to free the fae. Yuri would go back to being lonely, he supposed, stuck in the dead forest with no escape. “….please….wake up.” He would never wake up again. He felt so numb. Death was better than pain though.

A weight lifted from his chest. He hadn’t realized there had been anything on him. He also hadn’t realized the weight had been warm. Now he felt cold. So very cold. Also wet. Something was dripping on his face. But he wasn’t supposed to feel when he was dead, so why could he feel this? Silence filled his senses for who knew how long, then another chill. His body moved automatically, his lungs taking in a breath. He felt his heart thudding in his chest, desperate to warm him.

He opened his eyes to the light of the moon peeking through the open doors of his family’s shed. He touched his cheek, feeling a droplet of water. It was salty, strangely enough. And when he sat up, Otabek found a single strand of blond hair tumbling down his chest.

☼


End file.
